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Resolution of the Comintern on the Macedonian Question
The resolution of the Comintern of January 11, 1934, was an official political document, in which for the first time, an authoritative international organization provided directions for recognizing of the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and Macedonian language.Duncan Perry, "The Republic of Macedonia: finding its way" in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrot (eds.), Politics, power and the struggle for Democracy in South-Eastern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 228-229. At that time there were a few ethnographers, who claimed that a separate Macedonian nation existed and among the majority of the Macedonian Slavs coexisted pro-Bulgarian ethnic sentiments and Macedonian regional identity.During the 20th century, Slavo-Macedonian national feeling has shifted. At the beginning of the 20th century, Slavic patriots in Macedonia felt a strong attachment to Macedonia as a multi-ethnic homeland... Most of these Macedonian Slavs also saw themselves as Bulgarians. By the middle of the 20th century, however Macedonian patriots began to see Macedonian and Bulgarian loyalties as mutually exclusive. Regional Macedonian nationalism had become ethnic Macedonian nationalism... This transformation shows that the content of collective loyalties can shift. "Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe", Ethnologia Balkanica Series, Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer, LIT Verlag Münster, 2010, ISBN 3825813878, p. 127 In June 1931 the registrar of the Comintern Otto Kuusinen in his report on the national question to the Executive Committee, suggested that the main weakness of the Comintern was the insufficient appreciation of the national questions.К у у с и н е н, О. Слабият участък от фронта на Коминтерна. — Комунистическо знаме, VIII. 1931, № 9, с. 19. Kuusinen called to discuss the national question in order to develop a new national program for each of the parties. Meanwhile, to the Balkan communist parties a directive was provided, for the gradual abandonment of the slogan of the Balkan Federation, highlighting in its foreground the "right of the distinct peoples of self-determination to a full separation". The reason for this political turning, was the rising of Nazism in Germany. Thus in 1932 a members of the Comintern sponsored IMRO (United), put for the first time the issue of the recognition of a separate Macedonian nation.Произходът на македонската нация - Стенограма от заседание на Македонския Научен Институт в София през 1947 г. This question was discussed among them, however, there was a split when Vasil Hadzhikimov and his group, refused to agree that the Macedonians are a separate people from the Bulgarians. Nevertheless, the highest institutions of the Comintern were informed about this issue from Dino Kyosev who gave a lecture in Moscow in 1933 on the distinct Macedonian national consciousness. As result in the autumn of 1933 the Macedonian Dimitar Vlahov - leader of the IMRO (United) and former Bulgarian diplomat, was summoned in Moscow and took part in a number of meetings.Мемоари на Димитър Влахов. Скопје, 1970, стр. 356. At one of them the Executive Committee ordered the leading cadres of the Balkan Secretariate, Valecki - a Pole, and Šmeral - a Czech, to draw up a special resolution on the issue. Because they had no concept of this problem, using Vlahov's help the resolution yet had been prepared.Balkan Studies: Biannual Publication of the Institute for Balkan Studies, Hidryma Meletōn Chersonēsou tou Haimou (Thessalonikē, Greece), 1994, p. 363. Vlahov claims, before the convening of the consultation the leadership had already its stand that the Macedonian nation exists.Dimitar Vlahov, Memoirs, Skopje, Nova Makedonija, 1970, str. 357. So on January 11, 1934, the Political Secretariat of the Executive Committee of the Comintern adopted its final decision on the Macedonian Question about the existence of a Macedonian nation.Who are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000, ISBN 1-85065-534-0, p. 98. The basis of the new concept was the common view that the region of Macedonia is one of the pivots of future imperialist war and therefore the Comintern seeks an option to blunt the contradictions between the countries that possess it. This decision by the Comintern was the recognition of a separate Macedonian nation.Палешутски, Костадин. Югославската комунистическа партия и македонският въпрос, 1919–1945, Издателство на Българската Академия на Науките, София 1985, стр. 223. According to Vlahov, that was precisely what happened in Moscow in 1934: "I mentioned earlier that the Comintern itself wanted the Macedonian Question to be considered at one of the consultations of its executive committee. One day I was informed that the consultation would be held. And so it was. Before the convening of the consultation, the inner leadership of the committee had already reached its stand, including the question of Macedonian nation, and charged the Balkan Secretariat with the drafting of corresponding resolution... In the resolution, which we published in the Makedonsko Delo in 1934, it was concluded that the Macedonian nation exists".The national question in Yugoslavia: origins, history, politics, Ivo Banac, Cornell University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-8014-9493-1, p. 328. He also mentioned that the resolution had a hostile reception both from members of the Bulgarian Communist Party and of the IMRO (United), residing in Moskow.Balkan Currents: Studies in the History, Culture and Society of a Divided Land, Basil P. Caloyeras, Lawrence A. Tritle, Loyola Marymount Univ, 1998, ISBN 0941690822, p. 108. Vlahov himself was a member of both organizations and a Soviet spy,Разведка и контрразведка в лицах: энциклопедический словарь российских спецслужб, Анатолий Валентинович Диенко, Клуб ветеранов госбезопасности (Руссия), Издател Русскiй мiръ, 2002 стр. 97. who declared himself until then as a Bulgarian.Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956, p. 105.According to the Macedonian historian Academician Ivan Katardzhiev all left-wing Macedonian revolutionaries from the period until the early 1930s declared themselves as "Bulgarians" and he asserts that the political separatism of some Macedonian revolutionaties toward official Bulgarian policy was yet only political phenomenon without ethnic character. This will bring even Dimitar Vlahov on the session of the Politburo of the Macedonian communist party in 1948, when speaking of the existence of the Macedonian nation, to say that in 1932 (when left wing of IMRO issued for the first time the idea of separate Macedonian nation) a mistake was made. Katardzhiev claims all this veterans from IMRO (United) and Bulgarian communist party remained only at the level of political, not of national separatism. Thus, they practically continued to feel themselves as Bulgarians, i.e. they didn't developed clear national separatist position even in Communist Yugoslavia. Академик Катарџиев, Иван. Верувам во националниот имунитет на македонецот, интервjу за списание „Форум“, 22 jули 2000, броj 329. He accepted the decision without any personal reaction or substantive comment, that confirms he was operating in fact as a Communist agent.Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer, LIT Verlag Münster, 2008, ISBN 3825813878, p. 142. However, the Resolution didn't ever mention the ineffectual Vlahov led IMRO (United).Yugoslav communism and the Macedonian question, Stephen E. Palmer, Robert R. King, Archon Books, 1971, ISBN 0208008217, p. 48. The Resolution was published for the first time in the April issue of the IMRO (United) magazine "Makedonsko Delo".Македонско дело, бр. 185, IV. 1934. Following the decision of the Comintern, IMRO (United) took as its slogan "the right of the Macedonian people to self-determination up to secession" and formation of "Macedonian Republic of working masses". Despite the fact that this was formally a Resolution of IMRO (United), it was a document adopted by the Comintern, which was immediately published in all the mouthpieces of this international communist centre. Afterwards the mainstream Bulgarian public opinion has maintained that the Comintern is the "inventor" of the idea about the existence of a separate Macedonian nation.Macedonia: Warlords and Rebels in the Balkans, John Phillips, I.B.Tauris, 2004, ISBN 186064841X, p. 37. Prior to the Second World War, this views on the Macedonian issue had been of little practical importance. During the War the macedonist ideas were further developed by the Yugoslav Communist Partisans, although some researchers doubt that even at that time the Macedonian Slavs identified themselves to be a nationality separate from the Bulgarians.The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world, Loring M. Danforth, Princeton University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-691-04356-6, pp. 65-66. After the Red Army entered the Balkans in the late 1944, new communist regimes came into power in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and their policy on the Macedonian Question was committed to the Resolution of supporting the development of a distinct ethnic Macedonian identity. A separate Macedonian language also was codified in 1945. Footnotes External links *The Resolution of the Comintern on the Macedonian Nation and the Macedonian Language (1934) *The situation in Macedonia and the tasks of IMRO (United) "Makedonsko Delo", April 1934. See also * Macedonian nationalism Category:Comintern Category:Communist parties Category:History of the Republic of Macedonia Category:Macedonian society Category:Macedonian nationalism Category:1934 in politics